


REALLY, REALLY BAD DECISIONS

by Anonymous



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hand Jobs, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:08:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Joey was also drunk, but he didn’t need to be to pull this kind of stunt. He was always all over Chandler. He was so certain of his heterosexuality that crawling into bed with Chandler and spooning up against him was totally normal, appropriate thing to do. Looping his arms round Chandler’s waist. Sitting halfway onto his lap. God, if Joey was a woman, he'd be falling over himself to get a piece of him. Her. Fuck.
Relationships: Chandler Bing/Joey Tribbiani
Comments: 21
Kudos: 396
Collections: Anonymous





	REALLY, REALLY BAD DECISIONS

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot BELIEVE that I wrote this... please comment to prove it was worthwhile :| love y'all

Some things, you do them over and over again because you have to. It’s the monotony of the capitalist lifestyle. Other things, you keep doing them because you love them. They’ll never get old.

Or at least, you can’t stand the thought that they might. 

Chandler had a shitty day at work. So, like every time when he’d had a shitty day at work, he drank alcohol with his friends until he wasn’t on the verge of suicide. Everyone told him to go easy on the beer but he’d just gotten to that point where the tension was finally starting to drain out of his shoulders. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted to get wasted and forget about work, money, his shitty love life and hopeless future. 

Ross and Monica were arguing about something really loudly, and Rachel was periodically joining in. He knew because he recognized the pitches of their voices, not because he was actually following the conversation. He had no idea what they were talking about, just that they were shouting, but they were also laughing, and…

He was sitting on the floor because it felt like a good idea at the time. At some point he’d ended up with his back pressed against Joey’s legs, and Joey’s hands buried in his hair. Occasionally, he’d feel the vibration of Joey’s body against his as he laughed at something the others said. Chandler kept his eyes closed. If he pretended he couldn’t see it, no one could say he was complicit in Joey’s aimless petting through his hair. 

Joey was also drunk, but he didn’t need to be to pull this kind of stunt. He was always all over Chandler. He was so certain of his heterosexuality that crawling into bed with Chandler and spooning up against him was totally normal, appropriate thing to do. Looping his arms round Chandler’s waist. Sitting halfway onto his lap. God, if Joey was a woman, he'd be falling over himself to get a piece of him. Her. Fuck.

It was okay, though, because they all did that. They were really good friends. It took a long time for him to learn, but there was nothing wrong with cuddling up to them, because human beings needed physical contact to stay happy and healthy. 

Well, Chandler was neither of those things. And Joey was scratching the nape of his neck, and he was starting to get hard. If he hadn’t been so far gone, he would have jumped up like he’d been electrocuted, and gotten the hell out of there. As it was, he swallowed, and said nothing.

“You tired, Chan? You wanna go to bed?” Joey asked. He’d leaned down and murmured it right in Chandler’s ear. It made him shiver. The demonic homosexual inside him elected not to answer, and instead, he slung his arm around Joey’s neck and arched up to press their lips together. 

Joey’s hands tightened in his hair, but he didn’t pull away. The kiss lost its chasteness the second Chandler ran his tongue along Joey’s teeth to taste the sweet, girly cocktail he’d been drinking. They made out for a total of ten seconds before Phoebe squealed and said “Ohmigosh!” 

Now Chandler heard that clear as day. Along with Monica’s gasp and Rachel’s peals of laughter. But he ignored them, because this was what a psychologist would describe as an emotional breakdown. Chandler’s desperate desire to be seen as the archetypal heterosexual male had morphed into complete apathy because he was tired. He was tired of pretending he didn’t want to have sex with Joey. That was all it came down to. 

Did that really make him anything like his father? Really? Because his closest friend, his roommate with whom he had an extremely close relationship, with whom he shared a casual physical intimacy, was attractive to him, and happened to be male? No doubt he’d feel completely differently in the morning, but right now, Chandler couldn’t work out what had taken him so long to act on it. His neck hurt from the weird angle he bent it to keep kissing Joey, but it didn’t matter.

Joey broke the kiss. “They left,” he said, huskily. 

Chandler opened his mouth to answer but suddenly found his voice wasn’t cooperating. He opened his eyes. Joey was smiling at him in that dumb, goofy way he had, and Chandler started cracking up, feeling lightheaded and happy.

“Hey, come up here,” Joey said, patting his stomach as if Chandler was just going to up and sit down on him. Chandler wrinkled his nose.

“No, c’mon,” Joey wheedled. “Please, babe. Lay down here. I want- I want to feel you.”

Any mocking comment around the quality of Joey’s pickup lines died in Chandler’s mouth as he registered that Joey had just called him _babe._ His mouth felt dry. He awkwardly tried to make space for himself on the couch, but Joey pulled him on top by his hips and they were kissing again, so he quickly relaxed into it. 

“What made you change your mind?” Joey asked, in between clumsy attempts to unbutton Chandler’s shirt.

“About what?”

“Being gay.”

Chandler winced. “I’m not gay.”

Joey made a noise halfway between a scoff and a snort, and he grabbed Chandler’s hand, and pressed it to his erection. “This is gay, man,” he said, trying to sound serious, but fighting off amusement.

Chandler didn’t move his hand away, feeling another man’s dick- Joey’s dick- hard beneath his palm. His jaw worked, and he couldn’t meet Joey’s eyes.

Joey’s other hand, the one that wasn’t gripping Chandler’s wrist, went to thumb over Chandler’s cheekbone, gentle and soothing. 

“My head’s a mess,” Chandler said eventually. His hand was still resting on Joey’s dick. It made it hard to produce rational thought. 

“That’s okay,” Joey told him. He was running his fingertips over Chandler’s ribs and it was kind of distracting. “You will always be my best buddy. We don’t have to do anything.”

Chandler met his eyes again. He cleared his throat. “What if I, uh. What if I wanted to?”

“Then we do something,” Joey replied, grinning. He started to pull his pants down, undressing as best he could in their awkward positioning until he was down to his underwear. Chandler didn’t enjoy the fact that he was literally salivating at the sight of Joey’s cock, a pretty fine specimen as penises go. The gay portion of his brain said, _could I fit that in my mouth?_ Right around that time, Joey stuck his hand beneath Chandler’s underwear and closed his hand around his cock. 

Chandler yelped, digging his fingers into Joey’s shoulders. Joey laughed, sounding like a smug asshole. Not exactly something to be proud of, that you knew your way around DICKS. 

What followed was the poorest sexual performance he’d ever given, and that was saying something. All he did was clutch at Joey’s shoulders and make stupid whimpering noises when Joey’s thumb slipped over the head of his cock, rutting his hips and leaking precum all over himself. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” Joey crooned. “Give it up for me.”

Chandler let out a pathetic sob and came so hard he saw stars. He lay there, trying to catch his breath, with Joey nuzzling against him like a strange five-foot-eight Italian cat. He was acutely aware of Joey’s hard-on pressing against his thigh, and he had to work up the nerve to return the favor. 

Joey twisted until he was the one laying on top of Chandler. “If you don’t wanna, y’know, touch it, I can just jerk off while you talk to me.”

“Talk to you?”

“Yeah, like, read a book to me or somethin’.”

“So the eroticism of this experience really is based on _who_ you’re having sex with,” Chandler frowned, kind of in wonder that Joey was really into the “sex with _Chandler”_ thing as opposed to just “sex with another warm body”.

Joey yawned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I need to get off. Jeez, Chandler, the noises you make. My dick is rock hard. Are you gonna help, or what?”

Chandler swallowed down his nerves, and he trailed his hand down Joey’s abs to trace the outline of his cock through his boxers. 

“Mm,” said Joey, eloquently, shifting his hips a little to grind against Chandler’s hand.

Chandler got a little braver and dipped his fingers beneath the waistband, feeling the silk, hot skin of Joey’s dick. Joey’s hips stuttered, and he dropped his head to rest against Chandler’s collarbone, breathing harshly against his neck. 

“Any advice?” Chandler whispered, frowning in concentration as he played with Joey’s balls and dragged his nails lightly against the underside of his dick.

“Shit. Ngh. Just pretend you’re jerking yourself off.”

Chandler did just that. He made his grip tighter and started to move his hand up and down, faster with the increases in Joey’s breathing. It seemed natural to let his other hand come up to cradle the back of Joey’s head, knotting itself in his hair. He was so focused on learning handjob etiquette that it surprised him when Joey shuddered and spilled his load over Chandler’s fingers. 

_That’s disgusting,_ was his first thought. _I made Joey come,_ was his second. It made him sober up a little- he felt way less drunk than he had before he’d started all this. He stared up at the ceiling with the mix of his and Joey’s come drying stickily all over his skin, wondering if he’d just made the greatest mistake of his life. 

Then Joey lifted his head up off Chandler’s chest, slurring his words. “See? That wasn’t so scary, was it?” 

Chandler thought he was kind of missing the point. It didn’t matter if it was scary, so long as it was worth it. He’d snapped because he needed to know if sex with Joey was worth the knowing looks their friends were going to give them, the fear he was gonna harbour that they’d be found out and lynched in the street.

“I need a shower,” he said uncomfortably, avoiding the question. 

Joey looked like a kicked puppy. Chandler felt his heart sink. He didn’t want Joey to look like that, ever, especially not on his account. He untangled himself and practically bolted to the bathroom, so damn ready to sit down in the bathtub while he drenched himself in freezing water and debated slitting his wrists for being a dirty queer. 

He stopped at the threshold and turned round. Chandler realized that he was at a crossroads. He had to make the decision to be true to himself, or slam that metaphorical closet door so hard he’d never see the light of day. He was petrified of losing his friends, losing what little self-respect he could muster. He was scared that things would never be the same if he went down this road. But in some ways, that could be a good thing. Change might work for him. Maybe he'd start _wanting_ to live.

Joey was looking at him, with this sadness that was way too perceptive for someone of his minute intellect. 

Okay, that was mean. The point was that Joey was pretty much the epitome of straight male masculinity, and if _he_ was comfortable enough to touch Chandler’s dick and cuddle with him afterwards, then Chandler didn’t have to keep fighting it.

“Come with me?” he amended. The words were tough to force out. But Joey beamed at him, and in that moment he decided that yeah, it was worth it. 


End file.
